Trying to figure out whether what I'm about to describe is a shit test and, if so, the best way to handle it. It goes something like this: although there's no apparent reason for it, the wife seems to be in a bad mood, and she displays this almost entirely through non-verbal means: big sighs, body language, how she's closing doors and cupboards, the tone of her voice or curtness of her responses, etc.
I've recognized that I've historically handled this sort of thing like a co-dependent Beta bitch. I couldn't be happy if she seemed unhappy, so her bad mood would make me worry whether she was upset with me. So typically I'd ask her if she was upset with me. Weird thing is, 99% of the time she says "no" and gives some reason having nothing to do with me. I would then feel somewhat relieved, but would still feel unsettled that she was feeling unhappy about something.
Since taking the Red Pill I've tried to handle this situation differently based on my (hopefully accurate) understanding of RP advice. I'm making a conscious effort to overcome my codependent tendencies, which means not letting her moodiness or unhappiness bring me down; trying to be emotionally independent of her moods. So now when I detect a bad mood, I've stopped swooping in like a Beta Nice Guy, asking her about it. I've started to just let her marinate in her moodiness without a word from me about it. I figure if she wants to talk about something that has something to do with me, she can and should just open her mouth and fucking say so like an adult. So unless she says something, I just ignore her moodiness and don't let it affect me. I've been successful at doing that 99% of the time lately.
However, there have been a couple recent exceptions. The other day she was doing this moodiness shit and I was ignoring it and just letting her deal with it. I'm almost certain she was wondering where her Beta boy was and was probably wondering why I wasn't swooping in to ask her what was wrong. Then I ask her if she knows where X is and she gives me a bitchy "how would I know?" response. So I wheel around and, raising my voice, say: "Are you in a bad mood or something?"--but with a loud, pissed off tone that conveyed something more like "hey, that was a bitchy reply, what the fuck?!" Surprisingly, she said "no", pretended like she wasn't in a bad mood, and from that point on she acted nice and non-moody. This incident puzzles me because although I like the outcome of that interaction--i.e., she stopped acting moody--I have this nagging feeling I took the bait and failed a shit test.
Another recent incident: she was being moody, I was ignoring her moodiness, I'm sure she was wondering why I wasn't asking her about it, but I backslid back into my old Beta boy behavior, saying: "you seem tense, honey, is everything ok?" She said it was nothing to do with me (as usual), but I got this distinct sense that she was relieved I cared enough to ask--as if she was relieved to know that her Beta boy was still in there. The fact that she showed relief indicates to me that she's been noticing that I've been more indifferent to her moods lately. This got me to worrying that if I continue to ignore her moodiness like I've been doing 99% of the time, she's going to spiral into a "he doesn't care about me" mentality. Yes, I recognize this is Beta bitch worry, and I guess this is my confession that I sometimes backslide into Beta bitch territory.
I'm sure my wife isn't the only woman who does this sort of thing--acting huffy and moody without speaking up and saying why. So I've got to ask: is this moody-for-unspoken-reasons behavior a silent shit test and, if so, what's the best way to handle it? Ignore it? Confront it aggressively? Ask about it non-confrontational way?
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